


To the Past

by Kypros



Category: Naruto
Genre: Drunk Sex, Light Angst, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-03-29 15:17:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3901054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kypros/pseuds/Kypros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tenzou never asks, Kakashi never pries. Sometimes, sex isn't enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Sometimes when he’s half-asleep, half-awake and half-drunk, there is a body next to him. Neither of them have clothing on and Tenzou pulls the sheets close to his body and squeezes his eyes shut and thinks of the questions he wants to ask, but will never have the courage to. Because drunken sex is always precluded with too much to drink and the end result is an uncanny silence as both drift into a welcomed state of unconsciousness.  He thinks about the stupid things said like _‘I want you’_ and ‘ _I know’_ and how it isn't supposed to be like this—but Kakashi has always been that strange exception to any rule that Tenzou has ever had, so maybe none the semantics really mattered—

 _Wait._ What he really wants to ask him is whether he loves him or—well, he can’t bring himself to finish it because if in the end he doesn’t like him, because if in the end this is just some drunken pseudo coping mechanism, some lust thing—

Well. He doesn’t think he would be able to handle the disappointment. And that’s why Tenzou keeps trying and choking on words. Asking half-finished sentences like “Kakashi do you—,” and then breaking off and finishing with the well-worn phrase of “never mind.”  Kakashi never pries. Tenzou never continues. And sometimes when he’s at his worst, with a hangover from hell and he’s smoked six cigarettes if only to make the pain in his head go away, he thinks he can kind-of-sort-of remember the too drunk confessions that only make the morning ten times more unbearable.  The fragments aren’t all there and in between messy kisses and desperate fingers, he’s not sure who said what and why.

Genma brings him a glass of water, telling him to drink it—he needs fluids—and smiles while commenting that maybe he shouldn’t drink so much.

“You look so pale, Tenzou.”

Tenzou sips on the glass on the liquid—the taste is almost unbearable—and across the table in the ANBU lounge Kakashi is frowning and won’t speak, but this isn’t anything new. Tenzou doesn’t look at him and talks with Genma instead.

“My liver agrees with you,” is his half-dead response—and dear god, he needs to stop drinking—he needs a toilet and a doctor and a bed that he can sleep in for the next five days and Genma laughs and Kakashi gets up with a strange sort of abruptness that Tenzou has grown to ignore. He doesn’t _get it_ when Kakashi sets his dishes near the sink and leaves the room without saying goodbye, and all Tenzou can do is roll his eyes and cradle his head in his arms with his cheek pressed flush against the cool wooden surface of the table top. _This isn’t my fault_ is all he can think. _I didn’t do anything wrong—I don’t know what’s bothering you. Why won’t you tell me? Why—_

Kakashi won’t talk to him even if Tenzou asks and the drunken sex doesn’t make anything better like it does in the movies and even with Genma condoling him ( _I’m sure he’s just having a bad day, Tenzou—_ ) it doesn’t make the pain of not knowing any less biting.


	2. Chapter 2

The clock on the bedside table ticked like a metronome with a ruthless constancy, its rounded face set in a cheap plastic casing that seemed to leer at him with a judgmental savagery. It was too dark to read the slow moving hands, the indigo opulence of the clear night sky hidden by hastily drawn curtains only hours before. Tenzou was vaguely aware of the motionless body beside him—the inundated nuances of the man’s silent breathing, in and out, methodical in its quietness and slowly driving him senseless. Tenzou knew that the body next to him was a man and just a man, but wait—

He wanted it to stop. That strange, flat bleakness—the bitter, utter embodiment of _lost_ , like where he was meant to be, here, right now, was something erroneous. He was meant for more—he was _worth_ more. He was worth more than mindless, casual sex and broken, cyclical conversations that repeated endlessly in a perpetual pattern, day in and day out. But he thought somewhere, in the back of his mind that everyone involved in situations like these liked to think that of themselves.

He shifted, drawing his legs over the edge of the bed and pulled back the sheets. The body lying next to him did not stir. It had been a long day and he was tired. He led himself into the darkness of the bedroom and didn’t bother flicking on the light. Winding his way through the blackness in a mechanical sort of automation, he made his way to bathroom. It was only then that he turned on a light source, careful to shut the door behind him.

He twisted on the faucet without looking up, and when he finally did meet his own eyes in the mirror, he stared. He saw himself—a seventeen year old boy with pale skin, dull, brown hair, uncombed and messy—and he blinked. He saw a shinobi who had stopped trying to hinder his own logical sensibilities, who had given in and bent his neck in defeat and allowed his brain to stagnate into the only kind of relationship his captain would allow him to have with him: drunken, meaningless, sex. He told his reflection in a whisper that he never stood a change when he first went home with Kakashi from the bar that one night, and if it came out bitter or cynical—well, he was just a stupid, achingly innocent boy, after all. He recognized the facts, and that particular fact was so true and so painfully ripping that he couldn’t imagine how he didn’t see it when it all first started. _He never stood a chance_ , and anger made his eyes glint like they used to, like when he was a child and saw the countless other children slowly die in watery, effervescent tubes that glinted with their horribly wondrous shades of green.

He breathed evenly—in and out: monotonous and always—and didn't turn off the still-running tap water. He took a wash cloth and pressed it to his face, wishing away the lingering drunkenness and when nothing came of it, he set the wash cloth down and turned off the tap. He was so tired. He looked at his reflection, trying to see anything in himself that made all of this worth something—something besides a meaningless fuck—and decidedly knew that no, there was nothing else. It had been going on for far too long.

He walked back to the bedside, flipping off the light in the bathroom and eased himself back onto the mattress. He couldn’t keep doing this anymore.

He was awake when the body next to him finally stirred, the morning sun casting muted rays through the cracks in the blinds, but Tenzou didn't move and instead squeezed his eyes shut tight. The body next to him spoke:

“Tenzou?”

But Tenzou didn't respond. There was movement and he could hear footsteps making their way across the room. The door knob gently rattled and the other man let himself out. Tenzou opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. It was a hot, white morning in June and his hangover was no worse than usual. He turned and looked at the clock on his bedside—the hideous thing with its rounded white face in the rectangular black, plastic sarcophagus. It ticked with endless vigour and the hands moved slowly, creeping upwards towards the number nine. He wished he had responded when Kakashi had spoken his name. Even now he felt the trill chagrin of desperation in his bones and the restless waves of anxiety settling in his stomach. He opened his mouth, tongue twisting slowly, and when words finally came forth, he knew they had been sitting on tip of his tongue for a very long time. 

“No more.”

His voice was greeted by an empty room, certain in its tone of precipitated apathy. There would be no more. That much was decided.


End file.
